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PAGE 4A - THE COMMERCE (GA) NEWS. WEDNESDAY. OCTOBER 15. 2008
mion
Editorial Views
Every Government
Must Overhaul Budget
With no end in sight in the current eco
nomic slump, elected officials at all levels
will be forced to re-evaluate government
services and programs. Declining revenues
mean government must shrink.
How will that happen?
The temptation is to slash most every bud
get by a flat percentage, based on revenue
projections. But that is likely to produce
greatly ineffective service delivery govern
ment-wide, particularly since many elements
of local government — law enforcement and
education, for example — are already under
funded. The current climate will require the
elimination of programs and services.
There is a mythological belief that govern
ment is hugely wasteful, but the truth is that
the "waste" is largely subjective. Waste to
one taxpayer is money spent for animal con
trol; to another, it is recreation or the senior
citizens' center, but every government service
has its constituency, and the elimination of
every program will do someone harm.
The fact remains, our state, county, school
systems and many city governments will not
have the revenue in the upcoming fiscal year
to support activity at the level of the current
year. Keep in mind that the cost of each ser
vice is higher because of increased fuel and
materials costs. Taxpayers have a legitimate
argument that their property tax assessments
should be lowered to reflect real market val
ues, so their tax per mill in 2008 should be
lower than in 2007.
The times appear to call for a complete
overhaul of government at every level to
pare it down to a size commiserate to avail
able resources. That cannot be done without
angst, grief and harm.
Years ago, Georgia decided to fund kin
dergarten and pre-kindergarten programs.
Do we eliminate those? Do we go back to
25-30 kids in a classroom? What programs
should go at the city and county govern
ment level? Animal control? Public trans
portation? Recreation programming? Road
repairs? There are no good choices.
We know where the state will strike — edu
cation, which has already suffered years of
cutbacks. In fact, state funding has been
reduced to the point that local school sys
tems are already on the verge of insolvency.
Without greatly relaxed (and detrimental)
standards for programs and classroom size,
the only recourse for local school systems
will be to raise property taxes. State cuts that
result in increased local spending are not
spending cuts at all.
The process of reducing government spend
ing to fit the reduced revenue will be painful
at all levels of government. Look for heated,
emotional debate in the General Assembly,
county courthouses and city halls as elected
officials and advocates of every service and
program try to strike a new balance.
The end result will make no one happy, but
economic downturns seldom do. Households
all across America are seeing their standard
of living fall as the economic collapse eats
away at their savings and investments even
as higher food and energy costs deplete their
paychecks. People are losing homes and jobs,
their security and their confidence. As the
economy shrinks, government must shrink,
not as a matter of choice, but of survival.
Editorials, unless otherwise noted, are written
by Mark Beardsley. He can be reached at mark@
mainstreetnews. com
The Commerce News
ESTABLISHED IN 1875
USPS 125-320
1672 South Broad Street
Commerce, Georgia 30529
MIKE BUFFINGTON Co-Publisher
SCOTT BUFFINGTON Co-Publisher
MARK BEARDSLEY..Editor/General Manager
JUSTIN POOLE Sports Editor
TERESA MARSHALL Office Manager
MERRILL BAGWELL Cartoonist
THE COMMERCE NEWS is the legal organ of
the city of Commerce and is published every
Wednesday by MainStreet Newspapers Inc.
Periodical postage paid at Commerce, Georgia
30529.
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and Madison counties, $19.75; State of
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POSTMASTER send address changes to THE
COMMERCE NEWS, P.O. Box 908, Jefferson, GA,
30549.
Does it bother you to know that tomorrow’s leaders
are being raised by today’s parents?
It’s
Gospel
According
To Mark
BY MARK BEARDSLEY
FAQ About
The Ongoing
Financial Crisis
A Haunting Time Of Year
Childhood pho
tos of me that were
taken in October and
November show a pale
and puny kid with
stick-straight red hair
and a wan expres
sion. I suffered from
tonsillitis, and in my
memory Halloween
consisted of watch
ing from our kitchen
window as the kids in our courtyard
went trick-or-treating. I wasn't even
supposed to open the window, lest I
get a chill. And my birthday, a couple
of weeks later, wasn't reliably much
better. The early antibiotics may have
saved a lot of soldiers, but they made
me sicker than my tonsils did, or so I
thought. I would suffer in silence until
I was as white as my pillowcase. By the
time they forced the "cure" on me, I
felt worse than I needed to, and took
longer to recover.
So the real horrors of the fall season,
in the deep inner place where those
old memories live and lurk, are the
childhood sensations of being sick and
feeling dorky and left out. Perhaps
for this reason, I've never been much
interested in costumes, and I'd just as
soon duck down on this side of my
birthday and come up on the other
side, with a new number attached to
my age.
I think my feelings about all of this
are slowly changing, as I live in a
place where fall is the most beautiful
season of all, and as I benefit from
the true miracles of modern medicine.
Long after I was relieved of my tonsils,
I was prey to sinus misery and allergic
to odd things like mimosa pollen and
balsa wood, not to mention mold.
Oh, mold — the very word gives me
a shiver no ghoul could provoke. Yet
now I think I could go out and harvest
the very things that used to make me
sneeze. No longer a
hostage to autumn
allergies, I simply
squirt a little Nasacort
and pop a little orange
pill called Allegra and
I'm good to go.
Nor are those the
only miracles. We now
have anti-infectives,
good ways of treat
ing depression, and
treatments that control or conquer
the once-blinding glaucoma. We can
wipe out polio, prevent malaria, and
halt dysentery — all global killers. All
we have to do is get the right drugs
into the hands of the people who need
them.
Ah, there's the mb. I'm watching a
senior friend, right now, go through
the "doughnut hole" of Medicare Part
D. She has expensive medicine that is
vital to her health, and Medicare will
only cover the first $2,400 of her phar
maceutical costs. The literature reads
as if it had been written by actuaries,
which, come to think of it, it probably
was. Yet my friend is lucky, relatively
speaking. We all are. We have lived in
this wealthy country; we have always
had options. What chance does a bush
child in Liberia have of getting lifesav
ing malarial prevention?
In this global era, we'd best solve
the problem globally — for who is
to say that devastating disease won't
spread like world-wide economic
trouble? The major pharmaceutical
firms may need to unite in controlling
CEO salaries and providing affordable
medicines, and if it's a bitter pill to
swallow, well, it can't taste any worse
than the aspirin my mother used to
give me, hidden away in my innocent
looking applesauce, can it?
Susan Harper is director of the
Commerce Public Library. She lives in
Commerce.
A Few
Facts t A
Lot Of
Gossip 2
BY SUSAN HARPER
Looking Foward To 2025
It is early October
2025. My two great
grandchildren, Harold
and Lisa, aged seven
and a half and six,
climb into my lap and
say, "Great-grandpa,
tell us about the
Troubled Asset Relief
Program."
"You mean the bail
out?" I ask.
They simultaneously put their hands
over their mouths and scream, "It
wasn't a bailout. They told us that in
school. It was a relief program."
"Did your teachers tell you if the bail
... I mean the relief program worked?"
I ask.
"Oh, yes," both great-grandchildren
answer.
"But wasn't there a terrible depres
sion afterwards?" They didn't know;
they hadn't heard of one. "Didn't
they tell you that Goldman Sachs got
most of the original bailout money?
Treasury Secretary Paulson had been
the previous chairman of Goldman
Sachs. Some cynical people thought
that looked fishy but Secretary
Paulson vigorously denied any impro
priety, so that was the end of that.
"But then, a few weeks later,
Citigroup, Bank
of America and JP
Morgan Chase, saying
that Goldman Sachs
had gotten all the bail
... er, relief, each want
ed $250 billion relief
themselves. Then
General Motors and
Ford both announced
that they were out of
money and were too
big to fail and demanded bailouts for
themselves.
"Then California said it was broke
and needed $7 billion. Next came
Israel, and then Albania (which only
wanted $250,000). The entire world
was in a panic and China announced
that it intended to redeem the trillion
dollars of U.S. debt it held.
"We might have survived even that,
but then the unbelievable happened.
The one thing that couldn't happen
did: Microsoft announced that it had
been bought by Apple. The country
collapsed."
The kids were eager to hear more,
but I told Harold it was time to gather
some firewood. It would get pretty
cold in the cave after dark. "Make Lisa
Please turn to Page 5A
Viewpoints
Rotation
BY WILLIS COOK
As the U.S. economy sinks
like an ashtray on The Titantic,
consumers wonder what they
should be doing to cope. As a
public service, here are some of
the most frequently asked ques
tions — and their answers.
Q. What in the &%#@ is
going on?
A. This downturn is what
vastly over-compensated econo
mists, hopeful of retaining their
jobs, like to call "an adjust
ment." The biggest adjustment
is in your stock and mutual
fund holdings, which are down
by 50 percent. We all have to
adjust to being poorer.
Q. Is the money in my invest
ment account safe?
A. Yes, what little is left. The
CEOs of major failed financial
institutions have it in big suit
cases where it will be crafted
into golden parachutes.
Q. Will the government do
anything to help me?
A. It already has. It spent $700
billion of your money to repay
huge financial institutions for
the money that they squan
dered. The money will fund
bonuses for CEOs for talking
Congress into the bailout.
Q. What is a 401K?
A. An investment account that,
because of the ongoing finan
cial crisis, is now called a 201K.
Generally, they are used to save
for retirement, but, of course,
now no one is going to be able
to afford to retire.
Q. What bank stock do you
recommend I buy?
A. Anyone but the one I own,
which has tanked.
Q. Why can't I get a loan
from my bank?
A. Two reasons: you defaulted
on the last loan, and all of the
bank's money has been taken to
bail out AIG.
Q. Should I take all of my
money out of the bank and
hide it under my mattress?
A. No. It would be much safer
to hide it under my mattress.
Q. Is there any safe place
where I can invest my money
and get a good return?
A. Absolutely. Buy The
Commerce News for 50 cents.
It comes with a coupon worth
$5 off at La Hacienda. That's a
1,000 percent return, it's legal,
and there's no limit to how
many you can buy. You don't
even have to claim the profit
on your state or federal income
taxes.
Q. Are your opinions compro
mised by any fiduciary connec
tions to major corporations?
A. No, but I'd be willing to lis
ten to offers.
Q. How do you feel about
investing in lottery tickets?
A. Well, the Georgia Lottery is
doing a lot better than the Dow
Jones Industrials.
Q. Are we headed for another
Great Depression?
A. There was nothing great
about the Great Depression, and
this one doesn't look so great
either.
Q. Buddy, can you spare a
dollar?
A. No. Go away.
Mark Beardsley is editor of The
Commerce News. He can be reached
at mark@mainstreetnews.com